Coachella 2024's worst moments – from Blur's fury to Grimes' glitches

Coachella has long been the festival that everyone loves to hate.

The trip to the site in the southern California desert is arduous and sunstroke-inducing, the cost of food and drink is enough to bankrupt you and the crowds just don’t seem as into it as they should be.

And yet, the event – which takes place across two weekends in April – draws an annual attendance of nearly 650,000, making it the largest music festival in the whole of the US.

And when you’re paying over £1,000 for the privilege of being there, you’d expect to get at least a bit of bang for your buck.

Yet, this year’s offering has so far been plagued by technical issues and unenthusiastic audiences.

Here’s a look at some of the lowlights of the 2024 event so far:

Blur’s bleugh reception

Damon Albarn vowed never to return to the festival again as the iconic Brit pop band treated festivalgoers to a 13-song set, including Nineties classics like ‘Popscene’ and ‘Song 2’.

The 56-year-old frontman tried on multiple occasions to stir up the crowd, even attempting to lead a singalong during the bridge of ‘Girls & Boys’ but his efforts were met with silence.

Fuming, he eventually told the audience: “You’re never seeing us again so you might as well f**king sing it. Know what I’m saying?”

Grimes’s car-crash performance

Grimes’s Saturday set has been dubbed “the worst performance in the history of Coachella” after she was rocked by “major technical difficulties”.

Elon Musk’s ex was left screaming with frustration as her songs played at double speed.

“All my tracks are double tempo and I can’t do the math,” she explained on-stage.

“They’re borderline un-mixable, so the rest of my set won’t be mixes but it’ll still be fun.”

In an apologetic X/Twitter post following the disaster, she blamed the issues on an outsourcing problem and said a lesson learnt was to “pretend it’s fine and engage [with] the crowd rather than spend a whole show slumped over the desk trying to fix software when [you’re] meant to be entertaining”.

The 36-year-old is due to perform again next weekend, at which point she insisted “everything will be flawless.”

A T-Pain-in-the-a**

The recent announcement that T-Pain would be performing a surprise set was met with a buzz of excitement.

And yet when fans headed to the Heineken House to watch the much-vaunted rapper, they were greeted with a depressing sight.

Around a half-hour before the set was to begin, it emerged that the house had reached capacity and no one else would be let in.

Fans are hoping the ‘Up Down (Do This All Day)’ singer could make a return on the second weekend – and maybe be handed a bigger stage this time…

Mic drop for Lana Del Rey

The ‘Video Games’ star’s microphone kept cutting out, to the frustration of performer and fans alike.

The Guardianreported that this caused "awkward stops, starts, and moments where she just motioned for the singing crowd to pick up the slack for her.” It also forced her to do a sound check mid-set – not exactly what you want when you’re trying to build up hype.

The food

Sure, this isn’t a specific moment, but every year the price of refreshments at the festival is a source of outrage and outright bewilderment.

In a TikTok posted on Saturday (13 April), TikToker Jackie Tanti revealed that she’d been forced to fork out $64 (more than £50) for two breakfast burritos and a cucumber water.

"Capitalism is crazy,” she concluded before admitting: “And I am a part of the problem.”

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